Design of Plants for Reproduction

Design of Plants for Reproduction - Page Text Content

FC: Plant Design for Reproduction By: Charles Foster | MS-LS1-g. Design and conduct an investigation to generate evidence for the role of specialized plant structures in the reproduction of plants, including the role of some animal behaviors resulting in successful plant reproduction.

1: Flowering and Nectar | Many plants use nectar to attract animals such as bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds, to their flowers. These animals then carry the pollen of the male part of the flower, called the stamen, to the ovule of the female flower. This is called pollination, the results of which are seeds or seed bearing fruit. Flowering is the most common way plants reproduce, and most flowers produce nectar.

2: Tuborose | Night-Blooming Jasmine | Plants also rely on an animal's sense of smell to attract them to the flower. Often, but not always, plants produce a pleasing smell, or fragrance, along with the nectar to encourage animals to aid the plants in pollination. | Fragrant Flowers (Flowers that smell good)

3: Dead Horse Arum | Odorous Flowers (Flowers that smell bad) | Fragrance and Odor | Some plants do not produce a pleasing smell at all or nectar at all, but instead rely on their terrible odor to attract pollinators. The Dead Horse Arum, as its name implies, emits the odor of a dead animal to encourage flies to crawl inside and aid them in pollination. | Stinking Corpse Lily

4: Anemophily (Wind Pollination) | Some plants do not rely on smell or nectar, but instead use the wind to pollinate their flowers. This form of pollinations is known as anemophily | Does this look familiar? Pine trees are an anemophilous plant.

5: Seeds and Dispersal | Once the plants are pollinated, they produce seeds. | Just as with pollen, plants must have a way to spread their seeds. The spreading of seeds is known as dispersal.

6: Plants such as the dandelion, ash tree, and bulrushes use the wind to help disperse their seeds.

7: These seeds are all shaped in such a way that they can easily be carried off by the wind. | A Single Dandelion Seed | Using the Wind... Again

9: Fruits and Berries | If animals can help spread pollen, why not use them to spread seeds, too? | Many plants produce tasty fruit and berries. Animals such as bear, deer, and birds come along, eat the fruit, and spread the seeds far and wide in their droppings.

11: All plants must find some way to pollinate, seed, and spread those seeds in order to successfully reproduce. As we have seen, many plants have developed some ingenious methods in which to do all of these things. | So, the next time you can stop and smell the roses, please do. You may be helping them reproduce!